


Buenos Aires 1995

by Schattenecho



Series: A history of love [1]
Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Dancing, Drinking, I'm not good at English, I'm not good at tagging, M/M, Prequel, Underage Drinking, Young Berlin, Young Palermo, Young Professor, criminal teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24351418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenecho/pseuds/Schattenecho
Summary: Martín Berrotte doesn't expect much from his life. He steals to survive, it's just his work.This day is not different from any other. He steals, he runs, he gets beaten. Noting unusual.Until he meets this boy in the rain...
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa & Palermo | Martín Berrote, Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín Berrote
Series: A history of love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758121
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Buenos Aires 1995

Buenos Aires, Argentina  
27 years before day X

A thick, heavy cloud was hanging over Buenos Aires, like a giant, dangerous monster, waiting for the right time to attack. In the city ever noise sounded hushed, the buildings didn’t have proper shadows. The sticky air was standing still and damp in the streets, where thousands of people were crowed together.  
Martín was leaning at a dirty wall and watched the big black cars, slowly moving through the crowd. The man, from who he should steal the notebook, sat in the first one, the biggest one. His client, a shady man named Pedro Alba, promised him 100 pesos for the book. 100 pesos he had to share with Angel. It would be enough for a few weeks, then this damn circle would start again. As it did every time.  
The convoy stopped in front of one of the shops. It didn’t have a sign, but everybody knew, that it was nothing else than a trading place for smuggled cigarettes. And everybody knew, who the man was, who left his car with a bodyguard.

Martín pulled the hood of his thin sweater over his head, knowing it would hide his identity, lowered his gaze to the ground and started moving to the two men. Angel would start his distraction every second, to Martín could reach the left inner pocket of the man’s suit.  
He had to cross the street, more than aware, that the driver would see him. But in this neighbourhood, nobody would care about a lonely fifteen-year-old in shabby clothes. Too nearby were the slums, the Villas Miserias, that roaming teenagers would be of any interest.  
Martín approached his person of interest and just risked one glance to check if he was still heading in the right direction.  
Angel wasn’t there.  
He was supposed to be there.  
It was part of the plan.  
Angel didn’t follow the plan.  
Martin looked quickly to the corner, were Angel should be hiding. Nobody was there. And in one second his plan burned to ashes. 

Anyway, now it was already too late to stop the operation. Alba would not just not pay him he would use the welcomed chance to show his power. Probably a few broken bones.  
Martin tried to control his suddenly way too fast breath. He had done this for more than four years he should be able to improvise at this point. He had to concentrate now. Only two meters between him and his target.

The man was standing in front of the shop’s entrance, pulling a lighter for his cigarette out of his pocket. He didn’t suspect a thing. Perfect.  
Martín walked past him and hit him with the elbow. The lighter and the cigarette fell to the ground.  
“Can’t you see!?”, the man grabbed Martín’s collar.  
“I’m very sorry, señor. It wasn’t on purpose, I swear.”, the fear in his face wasn’t fake. The tattoos on the man’s neck showed, that he was a member of the Mano Negro, a gang most famous for burying their victims alive.  
“Pick my stuff up, boy!”, the bodyguard pushed him to the pavement.  
“Sí, señor. Of course, señor.”  
As fast as he could he collected the pieces, stood up again and handed them over to their owner. At least, his left hand did. The middle- and index finger of right hand sneaked into the inner pocket. He felt the hard cover of a tiny book and didn’t dare to hesitate. Hidden in the palm of his hand he put it into the pocket of his sweater.  
“I’m very sorry, señor, I won’t do it again.”, he apologised again.  
“You better do so. Now fuck off.”, the bodyguard gave him a little punch on the back of his head, that made him stumble a few steps. He made sure, that he was gone, before anybody could become suspecting. 

Martín turned into the street, where Angel should had waited for him. Nobody was there.  
“Angel?”, he asked quietly.  
Maybe his partner got scared and hid somewhere. But nobody answered.  
Instead he heard heavy steps, running in his direction. He turned around and saw directly at the bodyguard. Martín felt immediately like a little mouse in front of a giant, furious bull. He didn’t know how, but they marked the loss of the notebook. His heart hammered in his chest, as it wanted to break free. In his head, there was only one thought: Run.

When he invented the plan for this operation, he looked carefully at the streets around the shop. He had chosen the small lane, because he only had to turn twice to reach the chaos of the slums. A chaos, that would give him nearly perfect protection.  
Only turn twice, then he would be saved.  
The running steps behind him came nearer, the man wasn’t just as big as a bull, he was as fast too. Martín was, for his age, a small and light boy, his life on the street made him quick and nimble.  
His breath went gaspingly, as he swept round the corner.  
A young woman with a basket of oranges on her head crossed his path, seemingly surprised of the panicking teenager, who ran past her. Martín only heard her screaming:  
“Watch out, hijo de puta!”  
And the noise of oranges falling on the ground. His chaser was closer than he wanted. But he was lucky. Only one corner and he would be safe.  
His lungs were aching, his body was trembling and his vision blurred in an out.  
A quick look over his shoulder assured him that he would be screwed, if he weren’t gone in a few seconds. Luckily, he was finally there.  
A solid wall was standing in his way. Not the thing he expected. 

A few days ago, he had gotten through here easily. But now the backwall of one of the houses of the slums blocked his route of escape. Martín released a suffocated sob of panic. The man would break his kneecaps, if he was lucky. He was not, he would end like Jaime.  
He had to get over this wall. Now.  
Martín took one step for warmup, then he jumped up to the upper edge of the brick wall, where his fingers found place to hold on.  
A big hand caught his foot and teared him down. His head hit the wall and his vision blurred.  
It didn’t become clear until the same hand grabbed him by the neck and pressed him against the wall. A lumpen face appeared in his sight. He could smell the bodyguard’s cheap aftershave, a chemical, biting smell:  
“Where is the notebook, you little bastard?”  
“I’m sorry, señor.”  
“I don’t fucking care. Where is the book?”  
“In my sweater.”, Martín only could whisper with his scratchy voice, he tried to got rid of the choking hand on his throat. His dismal attempts were in vain.  
He recognised a strange hand, that touched him roughly and scrounged around for the notebook. With a triumphant grin the bodyguard showed him his prey:  
“Look what I have found. And now you probably want me to set you free, no? You probably want me to set you free, no? Is that what you want?”  
Martín just nodded, while tears run down his face. He hadn’t enough breath to speak anymore.  
“And you are very sorry, aren’t you? Mh, are you sorry, pendejo?”  
Martín nodded again. His lungs were burning.  
“You want forgiveness and mercy. But these things are not available in the grown-up world. God forgives, my boss doesn’t.”  
He would kill Martín. Would bury him alive. Or break every bone in his body.  
The first punch came quick, it came painful, it came unexpected. It wasn’t a fist hitting him, it was a bloody hammer. Out of a sudden he asked himself, how fast a bone could break. The remaining air was forced to leave his lungs. He couldn’t scream, just groan painfully.  
Before he could recover from the punch, the second one hit him in the solarplexus. His jaws clinched together he could taste his own blood on his tongue. He probably had bit his cheek.  
Another blow and another and another, two against his ribs, one in his belly. Martín tried to concentrate completely on his own warm, metallic blood. It ran down his chin and his throat, disgustingly damp and sticky. The bodyguard hit his head against the wall, his vision faded out for a moment. The choking hand disappeared.  
He sank down on his knees, desperately panting for oxygen. A heavy boot hit him in the abdomen, he felt sick immediately.  
“So, little bastard, lesson learned?”  
Martín didn’t have the strength to speak, so he just nodded.  
“Good. Very good.”  
The next kick aimed for the head. Everything turned dark.

When he woke up, he was wet to the skin, his clothes completely soaked with water. He was shivering. Rain dropped down on the empty street, swept the filth and mud into the canalisation, where the water roared in the tubes.  
Martín pressed his ice-cold hand against his hurting abdomen. His clothes stuck to his skinny body, seemed to force him to stay the ground.  
Every part of his body ached, his ribs, his back, his head, his belly, everything. He had to go out of here. It was a miracle, that nobody had taken advantage of his miserable situation.  
He remembered the stories his parent told him, when he was a child. The stories of abducted children, who were sold to bad people. He was old enough to know, that those were fairytales but he was also old enough to know that fear was the only thing, that kept him alive.  
And fear told him to get the fuck out of here.  
He felt for the pain in his head. He felt blood. He didn’t want to know how the rest of his body looked. The pain told him enough.  
But he had to get back to his feet. That thing on his forehead, that was just a harmless scratch, nothing to worry about. He just had to take it a bit easy.  
He nearly collapsed when he tried to get up.  
His legs didn’t obey his will, they felt like warm pudding. But it had to work. And so it somehow did.  
One arm pressed against the wall, the other one pressed on his body, he managed to stand up  
His rigid limbs revolted against the movement, he had to force himself strictly not to collapse again. Normally his hair was dark brown, but because of the rain nearly black strands stuck in his face. The hood went out of place, he pulled it back over his head.  
It attracted his attention that his feet were naked. Apparently, somebody had stolen them, while he was unconscious.  
Carefully he tried a small step.  
Pain exploded in his chest, in his belly, in his head.  
However, he proceeded, limping and slow, but it had to work, so it worked.  
He managed to leave the dead-end, then he had to support himself against the nearest wall and take a break.  
Under a balcony on the opposite of the street were standing to garbage cans. On one of them, there sat a boy, just a few years older than him. The boy was a bit taller than he, with dark brown, short curls and nearly black eyes. His features were sharp and masculine, he looked actually pretty good. His clothes were casual, the typical urban camouflage.  
It was his way of wearing it, this nonchalant nearly careless attitude. The boy was sitting there, as the whole city belonged to him. He didn’t look like a boy from the favelas. He absolutely didn’t look like he was from here. He was fascinating.  
He had a strange glance, as he wanted to choose a horse at an auction. Martín had the impression, that he was the horse.  
“What are you looking at, pelotudo?”, he barked at the strange boy.  
“I am looking at you. Obviously. The guy didn’t remove you eyes, did he?”, even his voice wasn’t from here.  
It was Spanish, otherwise Martín would understand it. But with a foreign accent, which sounded much sharper and harder, than the people Martín normally listened to.  
“And why are you looking at me? Why are you even talking so strange?”  
“Talking strange. Look who’s talking. But yes, Spanish could sound strange to you.”  
“Hey! I speak Spanish and you are the weird thing. Where are you from?”  
“Spain. Well, point for me.”  
Martín couldn’t think of something intelligent to answer.  
“But why am I looking at you is a good question. I am interested in you. If the guy hadn’t checked his pocket, he had never noticed you. Your plan wasn’t that bad at all. But you shouldn’t trust Angel. He was a weak link.  
“How do you now this?”  
The boy grinned:  
“I watched you. Took a bit of time to find you in that lane.”  
“And you just left me there? What do you want from me?”  
“I wanted to see, if you get back on your feet on your own. Anyway, I am here to offer you something: I have a plan and I need one more man. You would fit quite nicely.”  
“You watched me. The plan didn’t turn out that well for me. Why should I help a random guy, who talks strangely and has a “plan”? You don’t really know, how this works.” 

Martín pressed his arm again to his ribs and wanted to hobble ahead. The boy fascinated him, but he didn’t need no more plans and no more strangers. He just wanted to go back to his shed and sleep. Tomorrow was enough time to think of the future.  
“I maybe don’t know, how this works. But I understand, what work everywhere. What would you say to, let’s say, ten thousand pesos?”  
Martín hesitated:  
“Ten thousand?”  
“Gold and jewels. Totally save from inflation. You see, money works everywhere.”  
“You’re lying. How old are you? Eighteen? You don’t have ten thousand pesos.”  
“I don’t have them now. But you will help me to get them. Everybody can do that, regardless of age.”, the boy left his place on the garbage can.  
Even the pouring rain didn’t seem to bother him:  
“Here is my card. If you change your mind, what I expect, go to this address.”  
It wasn’t a business card, but a real playing card, somebody had written an address on.  
“See you.”, the boy turned around and walked away.  
“Stop!”, Martín cramped. Screaming wasn’t a good idea, when your ribs a nearly broken. A pained groan escaped his mouth. However, the stranger turned:  
“A decision that quick?”  
“What’s you name?”  
“Oh.”, the boy smiled: “I am Andrés. With whom do I have the pleasure?”  
“Martín. My name is Martín.”  
“Well, then I am waiting for Martín. Adios.”  
And then he strolled away through the rain, as the street and everything in it belonged to him.

Martín dragged himself through the dark. The rain had stopped, but the water transformed the muddy roads into slippery slopes. There were no lanterns, just the light of a few candles shining on his way. The cloud ripped apart and showed a pale half moon, which covered everything with his white light.  
Martín stumbled through the night. Occasionally he had to stop and take his time to breath. Just one last stair. Just this last one.  
He pulled the canvas aside, stumbled a few steps ahead, before he sank down on his “bed”. For one moment, he thought about Andrés.  
Then he fell asleep.

He woke up and regretted it immediately. His whole body ached, he couldn’t feel neither his hands nor feet, because of the cold. Nevertheless, he forced himself up.  
What was this name in his head? Who was Andrés again?  
The boy. The one who made him this offer. And the giant sum of money. Ten thousand pesos. He felt for the playing card in his pocket and looked at it again. He knew where the address was. By foot he would need a couple of hours. He didn’t have the money for the bus ticket.  
But why even think about it?  
It would take him five hours to get there and five hours to get back, a march of ten hours, for just meeting a stranger. He wasn’t even sure, that he would make it there, without collapsing. He just should go to work. Although he definitely wasn’t in the shape for it.  
He stood up from his “bed” and stumbled to the entrance of his “home”. He slept on a bunch of stolen newspapers, that were laying in the corner of his shad. The back part was made out of corrugated metal, the front just a canvas, barely protecting him from the rain.  
There was no breakfast, he didn’t have to check. He just had to ignore it, like the thousands of times in the past.  
And until he could walk again properly, this wouldn’t change. No work no money, no money no food. Cruel mathematics. Stealing food, that would be completely insane. The merchants were the only people, who sometimes had real work for homeless children. Besides, they didn’t hesitate to punish anybody, who dared to touch their stuff. If you weren’t really starving, they would break your fingers, an injury, that couldn’t be repaired that easily.  
He was not the person to take that risk.  
So, his plans for the day: Waiting und roaming around until something interesting happened. Great.

When he walked outside, the steady breeze from the harbour let him shiver. His clothes were still wet and he warped his arms around his cold body. It hurt, of course it did, but everything hurt so he tried to ignore it as best as he could.  
The wind pushed the grey clouds above the sky, drawing a pattern of light and shadows on the streets of Buenos Aires. He lived in the slums, but from his shad, he saw the “real” city, shining towers of glass and steel.  
He didn’t have the time for such things. There was no time in his life for beauty, he had to think of more profane things. Like not starving in the next few weeks.  
Ten thousand pesos.  
Although he gave his best to forget the offer it wouldn’t leave his head. It was an incredible amount of money. And this strange boy. Andrés.  
What did have to lose?  
His freedom, yeah, his life even.  
But…  
He only went to school for two years, he was able to read and write, more or less, and he taught himself a little bit of mathematics. We would want to go longer, he had dreams, wanted to be an engineer and to bring water pipes into the slums. But then the year came, when his father left the family, leaving his devasted wife and four children behind. As the oldest of the siblings it was his job to fill the place. As a nine-year-old.  
Going to school hadn’t been a priority. He had done nearly everything, to continue dreaming. 

Fine.  
Without shoes, for five hours, by foot  
Ten thousand pesos.  
And another meeting with Andrés from Spain.

The streets here weren’t paved, nevertheless this neighbourhood seemed much posher, than the favelas. The houses were built out of proper stone with white plastering and windows containing real glass. Not super posh, but neat.  
There were barely people on the street, he only saw a woman jogging, an old lady walking her dog, a postman and a grey cat. It felt extremely wrong for Martín to be here.  
His bare feet were covered with dust and filth, his clothes, his everything, showed clearly who he was. What he was. A stamp he was ashamed of. He had never recognised how dirty he was.  
Yesterday he had laid for hours in a muddy street, his sweater had spots, that would never disappear, even if he tried. Even the blood, he had spit out, still covered his chin and throat. 

He stopped in front of one of the houses. It didn’t look a lot different from the others. Maybe a bit smaller.  
“I am waiting for you.”, Andrés’s voice echoed through his head.  
Martín rose his hand hesitantly and paused for a moment, before he decided to knock. Nothing happened.  
He didn’t know, what he expected. Maybe a couple of armed goons dragging him to a mafia boss, who would hand him a black suitcase full of cocaine. Simply nothing was a bit disappointing after walking for more than five hours. 

When he started to think of knocking again, he heard quiet steps in the room behind the door. And the noise of metal against wood. The characteristic noise of a gun pressed against a door. Instinctively, Martín threw himself to ground and buried his head in his arms, expecting that a bullet would pierce the point where his stomachhad been at every moment.  
Instead the door opened:  
“I knew that you would come here. But I have to say, I didn’t expect you to crawl here.”  
Martín looked up. Andrés stood in the door and looked down on him, obviously amused by his situation. He felt his blood rushing to his cheeks and just wanted to get up before this situation could get even more embarrassing. But his injuries made it impossible. Before he could even try, the pain pulsed through his body again and forced him to the ground.  
Andrés was still watching him. He seemed to wait, that Martín asked for help, not even thinking about offering it by himself.  
“Could you… Could you help me?”  
“Of course.”  
The Spaniard offered him his hand and pulled him back on his feet. Martín pressed his arm against his stomach. He could have known, that it wouldn’t be a good idea to throw himself on a hart ground, especially in his current shape after a long march. Generally speaking, it had been a way to exaggerated reaction. In a neighbourhood like this one, one wouldn’t be shot through a door. It wasn’t normal to get shot through a door.  
Even the pain his head came back, while he followed Andrés into the house. Behind the door there was a living room without any furniture, except three chairs and some tools laying on the ground. On one of the chairs sat a boy with quite long, wavy brown hair and a pair of nerdy glasses.  
Andrés seemed older than he was, like an adult.  
The boy on the chair tried apparently the same thing, but he looked more like a history teacher. He wore a no completely buttoned shirt still a tie and a tweed-jacket.  
“May I introduce? This is Sergio, my brother. Sergio, this is Martín, the luckless thieve, I’ve told you about.”  
Sergio got up and politely shook hands with him, but he didn’t say anything. Martín felt a scanning glance wandering over him. Seemed to be a family-thing.  
“Please, have a seat.”, Andrés offered him a chair: “The explanation will take some time.”  
Martín hesitated for a moment, pondering if he should go. Be he didn’t hear more people than the two boys in the living room. And even if Andrés or his brother intended to kill him, he wouldn’t really be able to put on a fight anyways. Besides, Sergio didn’t look like someone who could hurt anybody. Andrés, yeah, he looked more like to person, but as long as he couldn’t move properly, it was in vain to flee. He took the offered seat:  
“Thank you.”, he leaned back. He was so tired. For a moment he had to fight hard against his desire to sleep.  
“Since we all are sitting here so nicely, let us begin.”, while his brother appeared a bit stiff, Andrés sat relaxed and comfortable: “Sergio?”  
The boy adjusted his glasses:  
“Fine, okay. This is our target.”, he showed them a plan of a ground view: “The jeweller in the Calle Santa Cruz.”  
Martín looked curiously at the sketch, but had to admit, that he didn’t understand any of the lines on the paper.  
“The shop is a bit remote, the police needs over half an hour to get there, after the silent alarm is triggered. But more important for the plan is, that said silent alarm doesn’t go through cable, but through radio. And that’s the exact point of attack for us.”  
Sergio spoke with the same strange accent as his brother. He just didn’t sound that cool while doing it.  
Martín already sensed the endpoint of this conversation. He threw a short look to Andrés, who just smiled complacently back at him.  
“And this is our weapon of choice.”, Sergio bent down to the floor and picked up one of the tools: “This is a radio transformer. It catches every kind of radio waves and transforms them to new frequencies. It’s turned on here.”  
Martin considered the small silver switch and memorised its place. He had never heard of somebody using such a thing in a robbery. But it sounded reasonable.  
“And this is exactly you part.”, Andrés leaned back, grinning.  
“Exactly.”, Sergio readjusted his glasses: “You are the net.”  
“I am a net?”, asked Martín.  
“It will make sense, just wait. The most difficult part in robbery isn’t getting the money. It’s getting away with it. And this is the part of the fisherman.”  
“A fisherman?”, Martín felt a bit like in church following a confused priest.  
“To your service.”, Andrés adumbrated a little bow.  
“Then who is the only we, we like to give or properties to?”, Sergio gestured to Martín.  
“Uhm, the police?”  
“Correct. The police is authorized to take everything found in a crime scene as evidence. And so we got it all. Net and fisherman.”  
“Have I understood that this correctly?”, Martín leaned forwards as far as his ribs allowed him: “You want me to rob a jeweller and your plan is to block the signal alarming the police and instead sending one of you to get me out. That’s the plan?”  
“Not in detail, but yeah.”  
“So, if I go to jail or not depends on a stranger showing up in time?”  
“We are not strangers anymore.”, Andrés insisted: “You are our guest. Besides, we will start in a few days. You are not able to walk without trembling from pain.”  
“And you have to learn, how this works.”, Sergio pulled another tool on his lap: “Welding equipment. Jewellers only present fake copies in their stores. The real ones are in a vault. In the Calle Santa Cruz that contains three bolts and a door made out of three centimetres of steel. But the model has one crucial weak point: The bolts were made with too much sulphur. They’re harder, but also easier to melt. Easy enough to break them with a casual welding equipment.”  
“We will show you, how to do this. You break in, Sergio blocks the alarm, you prise the vault and I get you out. We could start in a week.”, Andrés looked expectantly at him.  
Martín didn’t know what to answer. The plan sounded good, very good. But many things could sound good. Things like dictatorship. He knew, that he would take most of the risk in this robbery. If Andrés left him alone, the consequence wouldn’t be beating but prison. In a system, run by people, who were pretty busy torturing prisoners during the dictatorship. People, one wouldn’t want to meet, especially as their prisoner.  
But what should happen?  
Even if Andrés won’t show up, he would just be on the run again. And if he showed up, he would get his money and would learn a useful skill. Either way, his life could continue.  
“Well, I don’t have much to lose. And what to do now?”  
“Now, we’re going to have lunch. I’ve cooked.”, Andrés disappeared into the kitchen.  
“Come on.”, apparently Sergio had sat on this chair for a while, when he got up, he stretched copiously: “The table is set in garden. Andrés insisted to set for you too.”  
Martín stared a him in disbelief. He had come here for work. And now he was invited to lunch. Nobody ever had invited him to anything.  
“You’re fine?”, Sergio had nearly left the room. Martín hurried to follow him.  
The garden was pretty feral, but the patio was clean and warm from the sun.  
“Where did you get the house from?”, Martín asked curiously, when he finally caught up with Sergio.  
“It was vacant. We moved in, because it isn’t conspicuous. Nobody would think, that two jewelthieves live here. Especially when I open the door. Please, sit down.”, he offered him a chair.  
Martín hesitated again, but now not because he was suspicious, but because it just felt wrong. He wasn’t used to eat at a real table with real plates and real silverware, sitting on a real chair. The majority of the poor simply used empty boxes and sat on the floor.  
He tried nearly painfully hard to sit up straight. This world, the world of normal houses, of clean patios and family parties in the garden, that wasn’t his world. It pushed him away, like oil and water. Despite of that, he sat at the table.  
“You are a thief.”, Martín flinched, as Sergio just started talking.  
“Yes? Why?”  
“I’m just interested, which kind of person I’m talking to. You don’t look like a thief.”  
“Would be bad for business, wouldn’t it.”  
“Right.”, Sergio smiled shyly and adjusted his glasses.  
“Señores, may I have your attention?”, Andrés carried, the hands covered in a towel, a plate with a round, yellow cake on it.  
Sergio stopped examining Martín and turned his attention to the water jar.  
“I assume, you don’t know what this is?”, asked Andrés, while he cut the cake.  
Martín shook his head.  
“This is a Spanish Tortilla.”  
Martín was itching to ask, what Tortilla was at all, but he had the impression, that the answer wouldn’t say him anything.  
“Well.”, Andrés rose his glass, which only contained water, as he would salute a big table: “Salud!”

Yellow light fell though the small window. The light created deep shadows in the corners of the room, where the two camp beds stood. Martín lay in his one, silently without any move, the arm behind his head, glaring at the ceiling. He heard steady, silent breathing from the other corner. Andrés fell asleep hours ago. Sergio too, but he had a room on his own, because he couldn’t sleep with another person present.  
Martín wanted to sleep, but he couldn’t. There were too much thoughts running around in his head.  
What to damn hell was happening here?  
This wasn’t his world, the single fact, that he was lying in a bed was completely absurd. He was a homeless criminal, without family or friends, without a real future. He thought about the chain of events that lead him to this point.  
A Spanish boy waited for him in the rain, to offer him a strange plan. And he took the offer. And now he was here.  
Okay, thinking didn’t make it any better. It still didn’t make sense.  
But…did it have to?”  
Was it important to make sense, when it turned out so well for him? He got up hungry, paralyzed by pain and without any money. And now he was here, the first time in months full, in a real house, the ugly black bruises cared for by a weirdly well medically experienced fourteen-year-old. And with the chance for the biggest sum of money, he would ever get.  
Did it need sense?  
His glance turned automatically to the other corner. He only saw Andrés as a dark shadow in his bed, but he felt his charisma all around him. What was this thing, this man had, that attracted him so much?  
He forced his glance back to the ceiling.  
How late could it be? Two in the morning? Three in the morning?  
“You can’t sleep, can you?”  
Martín winced and nearly fell out of the narrow camp bed. It was only the warm, foreign hand on his shoulder pushing him back on the bed. Andrés grinned at him:  
“I promise, there no monsters under the bed, you should be scared of.”  
“What’s happening?”, Martín sat up carefully.  
“You are not sleeping.”  
“You too.”  
“Touché.”  
“Do I have to?”  
“No. Nobody has to sleep. But it’s three in the morning. Too many thoughts?”  
Martín nodded his head.  
“So, what to do now?”  
“I don’t know, otherwise I would sleep, no?”  
“But I know. Come on.”, he stretched out his hand to him and pulled him up.

“Where are we going?”, he asked Andrés.  
“To the garden. We have to be silent, Sergio needs his sleep. But prior to that, I need to get some things. I will meet you in the garden.”  
Martín only saw a shadow fliting down the stairs and disappearing into the kitchen. He himself stood on the stairhead for a moment, starring into the dark.  
Then he started walking to the garden, as silent as he could.

“What do you want with all this stuff?”, Martín looked a bit anxiously around in the dark garden. The plants shined in silver light of the moon. They looked like they were made out of stone.  
Instead of a proper answer, Andrés handed him a glass with a clear liquid in it. The glass smelled strongly like alcohol.  
“Is that Caña?”  
“Exactly. Salud.”  
Caña was a liquor made out of sugar cane, which was available nearly everywhere over Buenos Aires. Sugar cane was a cheap raw material, which could create pretty big amounts of alcohol. Martín never liked it. The smell had been enough, to keep him away.  
It tasted like it smelled. Like sweet bleach.  
His first impulse was to spit it out immediately, but he ignored it and swallowed the disgusting liquid. He teared up, his gullet burned and his stomach revolted against the alcohol. He felt a strangely cosy warmth in his body.  
“So first mission accomplished. One to go.”, Andrés didn’t seem to have a problem drinking liquor at three in the morning.  
“You really want to drink another one?”, Martín had to hold back the impulse to throw up.  
“No, of course not. I’m not able to drink one more of this stuff. No, now we will dance.”  
“Sorry, what?”, Martín laughed in surprise.  
This had to be a joke.  
But Andrés just crouched down in front of a small box on the floor, a button clicked and Martín heard the quiet noise of a tape.  
“Come on.”, Andrés stretched his hands again: “Or did the priest tell you, that boys who dance with boys go straight to hell?”  
It hadn’t been the priest.  
“I…I don't know how to dance.”  
“Oh, shut up. All Latinos know how to dance. Now stop with the excuses.”  
Andrés grabbed his hands and everything Martín had thought of previously vanished from his head. He heard Andrés bumbling the melody. 

Martín was soaked into this mysterious bubble of fascination, that surrounded Andrés. Even the smell he exuded was composed of an extraordinary mix of smells. Somehow like smoke and paper, like green plants and iron containing ink, like a street after the rain and like the Caña he just drank.  
He didn’t smell like Jaime. 

Jaime had been a… what? A friend? A neighbour? A co-worker? Or something completely different?  
Jaime had been something special. He had had bright green eyes, a soft face framed with golden curls. He had smiled often. Three years older than Martín, he just had appeared in the neighbourhood, as he had been there forever. Martín had followed him around like a puppy. And Jaime had let him do this.  
Every day he had waited on the roof of one of the sheds for Jaime. And he always had come to him. He hadn’t cared about rain or heat. Always.  
They had rambled around in the street for hours, Jaime had taught him how to pick pockets, how to recognise weapons under clothing, how to move through a crowd, without being noticed.  
Jaime had been a thief. And a pretty good one. But this hadn’t been the reason, why he had done nearly everything for him. It had been a strange bond between them, that had forced them together whatever they had done.  
And then, Jaime had died. 

Martín had been eleven years old, he had sat on the roof and waited. Waited until the dark came. When the moon rose, a moon like today, not half, not whole, he knew, that Jaime wouldn’t come. He packed his backpack, with the persisted feeling, that he would need it. Martín headed off on his own, in the middle of the night only the moon as fellow and looked for him.  
Jaime lied in a street. The skin pale like snow, the blood black in the moonlight. And Jaime had been dead. 

He had stolen from the false one, from a Narco, who had carried five grams of cocaine in his wallet.  
Five grams.  
The bullet in Jaime’s head had weight more.  
It had been this moment, where Martín had known that he would never go back home.  
His mother turned her grief into madness, his uncle had moved in with them, straight from prison. He had been a choleric man, definitely not in control over himself. One time he nearly had broken Martín’s jaw.  
And now… Nothing had mattered anymore. Without Jaime nothing mattered. 

Martín started crying. He leeched on to Andrés, the tears rolled down his cheeks, his shoulders shrugged with the spasmodic sobs. Not even when he wanted, he could get himself together.  
He cried for all the things he lost.  
His father and his mother.  
His entire childhood.  
His dreams and hopes.  
For Jaime, who came to him every day. Who had been shot in the moonlight.  
Martín closed his eyes and tried to calm down. Andrés still moved him around to the quiet melancholic melody. He hadn’t stopped the entire time.  
“Jaime?”, he asked completely stunned.  
“No.”, Andrés answer gently.  
Martín didn’t hear him. His memories overwhelmed him.  
“Jaime, why did you leave? I’ve missed you. Never leave me alone. I never want to be alone anymore.”

Martín opened his heavy eyelids. The world around him was dark, he couldn’t really see anything. He lied, that he was pretty sure about. Why did he do this? And what the fuck was this place?  
With a stiffed hand he felt around for his surroundings. A thick carpet. And a table leg. Martín hold on to the table and tried to get up. His head put a spoke in his wheel. Who the hell had stuffed his head with wet wool? And why did his tongue feel like sand?  
His vision became clearer. He sat on the floor in a dusty flat, between a coffee table and a couch. Nearly every surface was covered with messy stacks of paper and empty bottles.  
He knew this place. Had he fallen asleep at a friend’s place?  
A big model of a zeppelin was hanging from the ceiling, behind that he saw a blackboard, which was covered with letters, sketches and numbers.  
Oh, there he was. Home. And what just had happed, hadn’t happed really. It had been a dream.  
And of course he dreamt of him. Every time, when he collapsed out of exhaustion and passed out on the floor, he saw him.  
Martín tried again to get up. His right leg was too shaky to hold his weight, he immediately sacked down to the floor and leaned against the arm rest. Today wasn’t going to be a standing day. Wouldn’t be the first time.  
Nobody was there, to whom he could go. Andrés was gone and would never come back. There was no reason to get up. His glance found the little box on the desk. To loaded guns were lying in it. For one moment he imagined how easy it would be to just get up, walk the few steps and end this misery. Maybe it would be better for everybody.  
Martín grabbed one of the bottles and took a sip without recognising the label. Caña. Of course it had to be Caña. Despite of that he continued drinking.  
Memories were better than his pain, this burning heavy emptiness that choked every feeling in him.  
And there were more than enough memories. 

The Calle Santa Cruz had only been the beginning. The plan worked perfectly, they had stolen jewellery worth thirty thousand pesos.  
Sergio had returned back to Spain, because the holidays were over and he had to go back to school. Then it only had been Andrés and him. And they hadn’t known not limit.  
They had visited the worst pubs and bars of Buenos Aires, they had done whatever the fuck they wanted. It was this time, where he realised, that he liked dancing with men, much more than with women. But he loved dancing with Andrés.  
On his seventeenth birthday they had been on the run, siting on the cargo platform of the truck of a friendly farmer, who had brought them to Sao Paulo. Andrés carried more than hundred thousand pesos in cold and jewels in his bag.  
In Brasil they had been hiding for two months, until they crossed the Atlantic in a smuggler’s plane and reached Cape Town. They had stolen diamonds and five months later, they had been on the run again.  
He saw rubies as big as eggs in Myanmar and the giant sapphires in Madagascar. At nineteen, he first set foot on European ground in Sicily. Due to a fake certification he was able to study Engineering, higher physics and mathematics in Munich. He graduated as one of the best across the country. 

Martín cried. He felt like somebody had stuffed a furious cat in his chest, which ripped him apart to escape. He sobbed quietly he wasn’t strong enough for real hysterical crying. In the last three months alone he lost seven kilograms, he hadn’t left his flat in weeks.  
The Caña burned in his throat, the disgusting taste filled his mouth. But he continued drinking. Otherwise he couldn’t bear the pain. Andrés and he hadn’t been two people, they had been one soul living in two bodies. Now one part was missing. The important part. He left him, like Jaime did.  
A bit stumbling he walked to the record player and chose a random record.  
The music was the only thing that kept him together. That kept him away from the small box on the desk. This little journey back in time to the years in Buenos Aires, where nothing was important, where he just had been a boy loving his best friend. A time without sorrow. A time he had lost.

There was a knocking at the door. There weren’t many people, who knew, that Martín was here. Probably the woman from the flat downstairs, who obviously had an affection for him. She wouldn’t go until he would send her away.  
“I’m on my way!”, he barked to the door.  
It wasn’t the woman.  
It was Sergio.


End file.
